Draft Report 

For the Weldon Spring Site Work Group 

SC&A’S INITIAL TEST OF EXTERNAL AND BIOASSAY DATA 

COMPLETENESS FOR THE WELDON SPRING SITE 

Prepared by 

Ron Buchanan 

S. Cohen & Associates 

1608 Spring Hill Road, Suite 400 

Vienna, Virginia 22182 

Saliant, Inc. 

5579 Catholic Church Road 

Jefferson, Maryland 21755

August 2011 

Disclaimer 

This document is made available in accordance with the unanimous desire of the Advisory Board on 

Radiation and Worker Health (ABRWH) to maintain all possible openness in its deliberations. However, 

the ABRWH and its contractor, SC&A, caution the reader that at the time of its release, this report is predecisional and has not been reviewed by the Board for factual accuracy or applicability within the 

requirements of 42 CFR 82. This implies that once reviewed by the ABRWH, the Board’s position may 

differ from the report’s conclusions. Thus, the reader should be cautioned that this report is for 

information only and that premature interpretations regarding its conclusions are unwarranted.
Effective Date: 

August 15, 2011 

Revision No. 

0 –Draft 

Document No. 

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Page No. 

2 of 9 

NOTICE: This report has been reviewed for Privacy Act information and has been cleared for distribution. 

However, this report is pre-decisional and has not been reviewed by the Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker 

Health for factual accuracy or applicability within the requirements of 42 CFR 82.

Document No.: Weldon Spring – 

External and Bioassay Data 

Completeness 

Effective Date: 

 Draft – August 15, 2011 

S. COHEN & ASSOCIATES: 

Technical Support for the Advisory Board on 

Radiation & Worker Health Review of 

NIOSH Dose Reconstruction Program Revision No. 

0 (Draft) 

SC&A’s Initial Test of External and Bioassay Data 

Completeness for the Weldon Spring Site Page 2 of 9 

Task Manager: 

___________________________ Date:___________ 

Ron Buchanan 

Supersedes: 

N/A 

Project Manager: 

___________________________ Date:___________ 

John Mauro, PhD, CHP 

Peer Reviewer(s): 

 Joseph Fitzgerald 

 

Record of Revisions 

Revision 

Number 

Effective 

Date Description of Revision 

0 (Draft) 08/15/2011 Initial issue 
Effective Date: 

August 15, 2011 

Revision No. 

0 –Draft 

Document No. 

Weldon Spring – External and Bioassay Data Completeness 

Page No. 

3 of 9 

NOTICE: This report has been reviewed for Privacy Act information and has been cleared for distribution. 

However, this report is pre-decisional and has not been reviewed by the Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker 

Health for factual accuracy or applicability within the requirements of 42 CFR 82.

TABLE OF CONTENTS 

Introduction..................................................................................................................................... 4 

Initial Test for Data Completeness ................................................................................................. 4 

Individual Case Results – External Monitoring.............................................................................. 4 

Individual Case Results – Bioassays............................................................................................... 5 

Collective Monitoring Results - External Monitoring.................................................................... 6 

Summary - External Dose Data ...................................................................................................... 7 

Collective Monitoring Results - Bioassay Monitoring ................................................................... 7 

Summary – Bioassay Monitoring Data........................................................................................... 8 

Summary......................................................................................................................................... 8 
Effective Date: 

August 15, 2011 

Revision No. 

0 –Draft 

Document No. 

Weldon Spring – External and Bioassay Data Completeness 

Page No. 

4 of 9 

NOTICE: This report has been reviewed for Privacy Act information and has been cleared for distribution. 

However, this report is pre-decisional and has not been reviewed by the Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker 

Health for factual accuracy or applicability within the requirements of 42 CFR 82.

INTRODUCTION 

The recorded external monitoring and bioassay results for the Weldon Spring site (WSS) 

workers during the SEC-00143 period (1957–1967) consist of photo copies of the original 

handwritten and/or computer generated records, and also those contained on the Center for 

Epidemiological Research (CER) database. However, NIOSH has stated that the CER database 

will not be used for dose reconstruction purposes; only the original records will be used. 

Therefore, the accuracy of the original records is not an issue, since they are legible, but the 

completeness of the original records does need to be addressed. During the May 9, 2011, WSS 

Work Group (WG) meeting, the WG instructed SC&A to perform an initial test of the 

completeness of the external and bioassay monitoring data for the WSS workers for the period of 

1957–1967 to determine if there are any indications of a problem with data completeness for the 

WSS.

 

INITIAL TEST FOR DATA COMPLETENESS 

Unless 100% of the workers were externally monitored 100% of the time, and all the records are 

verified to be available, completeness of data is a subjective issue; i.e., to what degree is it 

necessary to be shown that all the original records are presently available. Generally the task is 

approached by evaluating the available records of workers that one would expect would have had 

the potential for occupational external/internal exposures as a result of a combination of their 

work location, job title, and/or time period of employment. If the overall mission of a site is 

fairly constant, such as it was at the WSS, then the fraction of the workers monitored should 

remain reasonably constant, allowing for some variations for different missions and changes in 

regulatory requirements. If the records for a certain period show that an unusually low fraction 

of the workers were monitored, then there may be a potential issue for that period. Evaluating 

the fraction of workers monitored, instead of the absolute number, allows for fluctuations in the 

number of employees in the work force without sufficiently influencing the results. 

SC&A selected 15 cases from the WSS claims files that covered employment during the period 

1957–1967. These cases were selected on the basis of having potential external/internal 

exposures and with many of the workers having job titles of Operator or Chemical Operator, 

which provided a database for evaluation of data completeness during the time period. For this 

initial data completeness test of the selected 15 cases, approximately 300 DOE records 

containing around 5,000 pages of data was scanned for dosimetry and bioassay records. If a 

worker had external dose entries for any given year, then that year was counted as monitored. In 

most cases, there were multipliable entries for each year, but the details for each year (i.e., the 

number of months monitored, etc.) were not analyzed for this initial test. This analysis method 

was also applied to bioassay monitoring. 

INDIVIDUAL CASE RESULTS – EXTERNAL MONITORING 

SC&A analyzed the total number of years worked for each of the 15 workers and their respective 

years of external dose data according to the DOE records in the claimant’s files. On average, 

these workers were monitored approximately 91% of the time. Figure 1 below summarizes these 

results. 
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NOTICE: This report has been reviewed for Privacy Act information and has been cleared for distribution. 

However, this report is pre-decisional and has not been reviewed by the Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker 

Health for factual accuracy or applicability within the requirements of 42 CFR 82.

WSS-Percent of Years Badged for External 

Dose for Each Case

(91% average for 15 workers)

0

20

40

60

80

100

C1C2C3C4C5C6C7C8C9

C10C11C12C13C14C15

Case I.D. for Analyses

% of years badged

Figure 1. Percent of Years Monitored (Badged) for 

External Exposure for Individual Cases 

INDIVIDUAL CASE RESULTS – BIOASSAYS 

SC&A analyzed the total number of years worked for each of the 15 workers and their respective 

years of bioassay monitoring data according to the DOE records in the claimant’s files. On 

average, these workers were monitored approximately 94% of the time. Figure 2 below 

summarizes these results. 

WSS-Percent of Years Bioassayed for Each Case

(94% average for 15 workers)

0

20

40

60

80

100

C1C2C3C4C5C6C7C8C9

C10C11C12C13C14C15

Case I.D. for Analyses

% of years bioassayed

Figure 2. Percent of Years Bioassayed for Individual Cases 
Effective Date: 

August 15, 2011 

Revision No. 

0 –Draft 

Document No. 

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6 of 9 

NOTICE: This report has been reviewed for Privacy Act information and has been cleared for distribution. 

However, this report is pre-decisional and has not been reviewed by the Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker 

Health for factual accuracy or applicability within the requirements of 42 CFR 82.

COLLECTIVE MONITORING RESULTS - EXTERNAL MONITORING 

The individual monitoring results described above provide some useful indications, but the 

collective monitoring results as a function of year provide for a further breakdown of the data by 

year. Figure 3 below indicates that there was reasonable availability of records for most years 

during the 1957–1966 time period, with 1957 and 1958 being the two years with the lowest 

availability of recorded data, while there were no records for 1967 (this is further illustrated in 

Figure 4).

WSS - Number of Badged-Years & Number 

of Worked-Years Vs. Year 

(91% average badged for 15 workers)

0

2

4

6

8

10

12

14

16

19571958195919601961196219631964196519661967

Year

# of Badged-years & # 

of worked-years

per year

# of badged-years # of worked-years

Figure 3. Number of Years Monitored (Badged) for External Exposure 

and Number of Years Worked vs. Year 

WSS - Percent of Year Not Badged for External 

Dose Vs. Year 

(9% average for 15 Workers)

0

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

80

90

100

19571958195919601961196219631964196519661967

Year

% of year not badged 

per year

Figure 4. Percent of Years Not Monitored (Badged) for External Exposure vs. Year 
Effective Date: 

August 15, 2011 

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0 –Draft 

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Page No. 

7 of 9 

NOTICE: This report has been reviewed for Privacy Act information and has been cleared for distribution. 

However, this report is pre-decisional and has not been reviewed by the Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker 

Health for factual accuracy or applicability within the requirements of 42 CFR 82.

SUMMARY - EXTERNAL DOSE DATA 

This initial analysis consisted of sampling 15 cases of potentially exposed workers for external 

dose data completeness. This was a very limit sampling, but did indicate the following: 

 1957: The records indicate that, on average, 63% of the workers were monitored for 

external dose during this year. 

 1958: The records indicate that, on average, 54% of the workers were monitored for 

external dose during this year. 

 1967: The records indicate that none of the workers were monitored for external dose 

during this year. 

 1957–1967: The records indicate that, on average, 91% of the workers were monitored 

for external dose during these years. 

For the year 1958, SC&A did not count the year as monitored if there was no data specially 

labeled for 1958; however, there were a number of cases where there was a summary sheet that 

listed the total dose recorded to date through 1958. If there was 1957 dose data, then the total 

dose for 1958 could be determined by subtracting the two total dose values. SC&A’s review of 

NIOSH’s dose reconstruction files indicated that this method was used to derive the 1958 dose in 

most cases where external dose reconstruction was performed. If the 1958 total-to-date data is 

included, it would increase the average to 85% of the workers monitored for 1958. 

COLLECTIVE MONITORING RESULTS - BIOASSAY MONITORING 

Figure 5 below indicates that there was reasonable availability of records for most years during 

the 1957–1966 time period, with 1957 and 1958 being the two years with the lowest availability 

of recorded data, while there were no records for 1967 (this is further illustrated in Figure 6). 

WSS - Number of Bioassayed-Years & Number 

of Worked-Years Vs. Year 

(94% average bioassayed for 15 workers)

0

2

4

6

8

10

12

14

16

19571958195919601961196219631964196519661967

Year

# of Bioassayed-years 

& # of worked-years 

per year

# of bioassayed-years # of worked-years

Figure 5. Number of Years Bioassayed and Number of Years Worked vs. Year 
Effective Date: 

August 15, 2011 

Revision No. 

0 –Draft 

Document No. 

Weldon Spring – External and Bioassay Data Completeness 

Page No. 

8 of 9 

NOTICE: This report has been reviewed for Privacy Act information and has been cleared for distribution. 

However, this report is pre-decisional and has not been reviewed by the Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker 

Health for factual accuracy or applicability within the requirements of 42 CFR 82.

WSS - Percent of Year Not Bioassayed 

Vs. Year 

(6% average for 15 Workers)

0

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

80

90

100

19571958195919601961196219631964196519661967

Year

% of year not bioassayed 

per year

Figure 6. Percent of Years Not Bioassayed vs. Year 

SUMMARY – BIOASSAY MONITORING DATA 

This initial analysis consisted of sampling 15 cases of potentially exposed workers for bioassay 

data completeness. This was a very limit sampling, but did indicate the following: 

 1957: The records indicate that, on average, 85% of the workers were bioassayed during 

this year. 

 1958: The records indicate that, on average, 85% of the workers were bioassayed during 

this year. 

 1966: The records indicate that, on average, 89% of the workers were bioassayed during 

this year. 

 1967: The records indicate that none of the workers were bioassayed during this year. 

 1957–1967: The records indicate that, on average, 94% of the workers bioassayed during 

these years. 

Only urinalyses were counted as bioassays for this initial test; breath analyses or in-vivo counts 

for thorium were not included. 

SUMMARY 

This initial look at the completeness of external exposure and bioassay records for the WSS 

indicates that approximately 90% or more of the workers had recorded results each year, with the 

exception of 1957 and 1958, where the recorded external exposure results dropped to around 

60% and the bioassay results dropped to around 85%, and for 1967, when there was neither 

external exposure or bioassay recorded results. 
Effective Date: 

August 15, 2011 

Revision No. 

0 –Draft 

Document No. 

Weldon Spring – External and Bioassay Data Completeness 

Page No. 

9 of 9 

 This report has been reviewed for Privacy Act information and has been cleared for distribution. 

However, this report is pre-decisional and has not been reviewed by the Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker 

Health for factual accuracy or applicability within the requirements of 42 CFR 82.

NOTICE:

SC&A independently analyzed the DOE files of the WSS workers to derive the data used in this 

analysis. As a cross-check, SC&A then compare their results to those used by NIOSH in the 

final dose reconstruction reports, and associated files, for each case when these documents were 

available. SC&A found that their external monitoring and bioassay data was in agreement with 

NIOSH’s data used for dose reconstruction purposes. SC&A did not analyze the CER database 

files for these 15 cases, because the CER database is not to be used for dose reconstruction 

purposes. However, while reviewing one of the dose reconstruction reports, SC&A did find that 

a worker had 0.454 rem of beta and 0.374 rem of gamma dose recorded in the CER database for 

1966, and none was recorded for 1966 in the original copies.